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Hi guys!
I will be running a campaign that I've written in the coming weeks and months. I'm looking for specific advice, things which can improve the efficiency and enjoyment of game play for all. I am not looking for"remember, it's all about having fun, for everyone," or, "be sure to balance the difficulty!"
No, I am looking for specific tips for running games. This could be anything from how you suggest running combats, RP sessions, etc.
Thanks in advance, and I hope the question is clear enough.
In that case, we will need to know more about what you have in mind. Is there any sort of theme or tone that you are aiming for, for example?
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More information would be handy on your specific game and what you have in mind. However, I will immediately point you to this document. It is a guide to creating and running challenging and memorable encounters. It also does a great job of explaining CR in depth and how you can use it to your advantage to create better encounters. Even as a well practiced GM, I found a lot of useful information in here that has helped me with encounter building.
As combat is where most of your slowdown is going to be, you can take certain steps to increase efficiency. These tips are especially true for larger groups 6+ people.
1) No electronics at the table, unless being used to look up something related to the game if a book is not available.
2) Let everyone know that they need to be thinking of their actions ahead of time to prevent slowdown. If it gets really bad, and players aren't paying attention; tell them that if they take more than 45 seconds to figure out what they are doing, their turn will be skipped. (I equate this to the line at a fast food place. If you have been standing in line for over 5 minutes before you get order, when your turn comes up, you should damn well know what you want to eat by then.)
3) If people are unfamiliar with spell casters, and don't know their spells off hand, get them to print spell cards. That way they have a quick reference to the spells, effects, duration, saves etc. No need to wait for a person to flip through a book.
4) Don't get hung up on a rule if it's causing some slowdown. You are the GM, so you can veto something to keep things moving. Just make sure if you rule on the fly, that you go back and revisit the rule with the players afterward to make sure that it is understood for next time. Nothing sucks more than being stuck on arguing over a rule for 30 minutes during game play.
5) I know you said not to tell you to keep things fun, but to elaborate on that... If you find that your players are stuck on a particular bit for a while and are obviously getting frustrated, toss them a hint to get things on track again. Have them make a couple rolls (where DC doesn't matter), re-describe the room/encounter/thing with emphasis on the thing they overlooked, etc. This is why things like puzzles can be extremely bad, obvious solutions to the GM aren't always as obvious to the player. That being said, have flexible/multiple solutions to a problem.
6) If you are out of combat, still have everyone taking turns for what they want to do. Go clockwise, around the table, or some such thing. It gives people time to think on what they might want to do and you avoid having everyone talking to you at once. Try to give players each the same amount of attention if possible.
That's all I can currently think of, but once I have more details or more specific question, I can provide more thoughts and opinions for you.
*EDIT*
7) Keep detailed notes and a journal of each session.
I also forgot to mention this: When people write their own stories/campaigns, there is a tendency to have an idealized view of it and how the players will move through it. Avoid railroading your party and don't get overly attached to what you have written. Plan for broad scope and over arching ideas, and spend less time on the minutia. Always be ready to have a backup, just in case. The players will always do something you didn't expect and mess up your plans.
That being said, remember, being a GM is not about you vs. them. You are trying to give them a good experience in your world. Part of that is letting those things happen and reworking your ideas as new situations come up. If the group kills a BBEG early, or when you didn't expect it, take a short break to figure out what to do. If you make him impossible to kill, they will feel like they have no power in your world and it makes play less interesting.
I once had a group that decided to go in a completely different direction than I had prepared material for. This was within the first 30 minutes of the game. I took a short break to gather my thoughts and spent a good part the session running off the cuff, taking notes as I went. I had some general ideas of what was in the direction they went, so I expanded on it with a quest that would lead them back to where they initially were. I eventually led them back onto the path I had prepared for, but they had a great deal of fun being able to go on their little excursion. It gave them a feeling of an open and organic world. They didn't even realize that what I had run them through was completely off the top of my head.
1. Make sure to review the encounters you expect to get through beforehand. Even though you wrote the campaign, it's probably been a little while since then, especially as the game goes on. Doing a quick re-read/reference of the abilities/feats/etc. of the NPCs and monsters you'll be pitting against the party before the session can be a huge help, especially when it comes to things like auras, feat effects like power attack or vital strike that aren't listed in their base attacks stats, etc. Those kinds of things are pretty easy to forget, especially if you're trying to run a lot of enemies at once.
2. Pay attention to your players. If they seem to be getting bored, don't be afraid to speed things along a little bit.
3. If you notice that one player seems to be dominating the spotlight, make an effort to engage the others.
4. If the party splits for any reason, try to switch back and forth relatively often so Group A isn't sitting there for half an hour while you deal with Group B, and then vice versa.
Knowing a little more about the kind of game you're planning would help. What kind of plot? Sandbox or more linear? How many players do you have? More combat-oriented, RP-oriented, or pretty balanced between the two?
Okey, here's some of my tips.
Pick up Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep by Phil Vecchione and [i]Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management[i] by Phil Vecchione and Walt Ciechanowski. Great books, well worth a fist full of dollars.
Make name lists. Everything needs names. Everything in the real world has names and when things in your game world doesn’t, player immersion drops. But you can't name everything in advance. So make lists. Person names of various cultures, street names, names for wards, landscape features, bizarre gods, individual trees. Not everything at once, but think about what might crop up during the next session. A journey through rural lands and you'll need names for villages, maybe taverns, rivers, hills etc. You'll need other lists in a dwarven town.
I write my name lists by hand. It's an opportunity to filter away the weirdest, most unpronounceable names. I leave a decent space between each name, I use that space to make a note where I used a name so I'll remember.
Review sessions. Try to do it your self in a structured manner. Go through the session in your mind, write down what worked and what didn't. Where those the same things you where worried about and/or under-prepared for before the session? Also, talk to your players. Individually and in group. That's mostly about their experience. Did they get a time to shine, was their PC competent and appropriately challenged, was it fun? Talk regularly.
Ask players to describe. Generally, players (and GMs) just say what their character does. But what does it look like and what is she thinking while doing it? Having players describing such things have an added bonus - you get a bit more time to think before reacting to what-ever the PC did.
Use more senses than sight when you describe your world and your NPCs. And hearing. Those are the two most common. Smell is oft forgotten, yet few senses are as invasive as smell. Taste and feel might not crop up that often, but mentioning how a tavern meal tastes like or what a handshake or treasure chest feels like really adds to the experience.
Give yourself plenty of space. Nothing slows a combat down like flipping back and forth between pages of a book that is balanced on the chair arm because there's no room on the table.
Make up random background flavour. If the party want to go and spend the evening in the tavern, maybe there's a bard performing, or a game of cards- they don't have to get involved, but it means the NPCs have more personality than just sitting waiting for a PC to speak to them.
Stop the game session before you get tired enough to make mistakes, even if that means the final encounter gets delayed a week. One of the least enjoyable campaigns I played in ran so late into the night players were considering suicidal actions just so they could sleep.
No matter what you have written/created, weave the characters into the campaign. Use something about each characters background into the campaign. it does not have to be the central theme, just an NPC or some detail.
You might find the advice I offer in my GM tips useful.
-Nearyn
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Thanks for the responses, guys! I appreciate it. I haven't had time to read through everything yet, but I hope to this evening.
In case my players are reading this, I hope to be as vague as I can while providing the desired insight.
To answer your question,Nowear, the campaign will be quite dark, particularly in the second half. The adversaries will be some of the darkest, most wicked souls ever to roam the earth and beyond. The measure of their resolve to destroy things is unmatched. I hope to really drive that home to each player.
The campaign is in a homebrew setting in a northern climate. Think taiga and tundra with a coastal fisheries lifeline for the people who dare inhabit these lands. Essentially, nearly a thousand years ago, a dark Abyssal force came to the land and corrupted one of the most prominent members of a Union of States that had created a rare and lasting peace. This corruption ultimately led to the deaths of many and the shattering of the alliances. In Elysium, a rare intervention of Angels halted the dark incursion on the material plane.
Nearly a thousand years have passed and the darkness, as it turns out, was not eradicated, but instead has lain dormant, waiting. The characters find themselves in one of two main kingdoms who are at war with one another. Two main plots drive the story. One apparent and one in the background that will eventually emerge, the true threat.
Essentially the players will be drawn into the inter-state conflict(s) and will be presented with choices to make. Whom to pledge their fealty to and such. In the background, dark forces stir and will eventually become apparent to the characters. Was the massacre a work of the enemy, or is this something more sinister??
AS more is revealed they will uncover more and more. They will encounter the agents of these dark forces, and the dark lord whom they answer to. Eventually the characters will confront these forces head-on.
Exploration and replaying will be major components for this one. Combats will be intense and focus on tactics rather than the sheer power of the enemies.
I hope that provides enough insight. :)
ArtlessKnave ,
Thanks for the feedback!
I will definitely keep all this in mind. Particularly, the journaling at each session. This will be truly useful, as the amount, time, and scope of information revealed at each part will play a huge role for this campaign. This will help me sort things out and keep track of it all.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if an encounter is too easy or gets finished too quickly, you can just have reinforcements appear to bolster the enemy.
Also, if you're running an encounter with multiple creatures, it's fun to mix 2 or 3 different types of monsters.
If you're running 1 BBEG with no reinforcements, you might want to steal a page from 5th Edition and incorporate Legendary Actions.
Legendary Actions are special actions the BBEG takes immediately after another creature's turn. It's similar to an AoO or Quickened Spell or Immediate Action, but doesn't count as such. It helps balance the action economy of 1 BBEG against a party of 3 to 6 or more PCs. Usually, creatures that get 3 Legendary Actions per turn, and they recharge on the creature's turn.
They're often a single attack (ranged, melee, or (low level) spell), movement (either mundane or magical, like a short-range teleport), or special attack that uses up 2 Legendary Action (like a breath weapon or gaze attack or higher level spell).
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Don't know if you're familiar with it, but Obsidian Portal is a great tool for keeping track of campaigns. It's got a characters section (where you can put both PCs and NPCs), the option to create a wiki, a section to upload maps, and an "adventure log" section where players can make posts (in character, usually, though it could also work just to track things that happened). I've found it pretty useful for my games. It's free to create an account, though you can upgrade to a paid account for some extra stuff.
Be careful with throwing in reinforcements too often. If you do it occasionally, it can work, but it's okay to let the party steamroller an encounter sometimes. (Players really like smashing things.) If it's happening with every encounter, then you might need to adjust how you build them, though.
EDIT: For some reason the link I tried to post isn't working (it keeps trying to redirect to somewhere on the Paizo site for some reason), but if you Google Obsidian Portal, you should find it.
Don't know if you're familiar with it, but Obsidian Portal is a great tool for keeping track of campaigns. It's got a characters section (where you can put both PCs and NPCs), the option to create a wiki, a section to upload maps, and an "adventure log" section where players can make posts (in character, usually, though it could also work just to track things that happened). I've found it pretty useful for my games. It's free to create an account, though you can upgrade to a paid account for some extra stuff.
Be careful with throwing in reinforcements too often. If you do it occasionally, it can work, but it's okay to let the party steamroller an encounter sometimes. (Players really like smashing things.) If it's happening with every encounter, then you might need to adjust how you build them, though.
EDIT: For some reason the link I tried to post isn't working (it keeps trying to redirect to somewhere on the Paizo site for some reason), but if you Google Obsidian Portal, you should find it.
Yeah, throwing in reinforcements is a GM tool for when the encounter is not going as planned. Ideally, you'll plan your encounter so it goes the way you want it (EL, EL-1, EL+2, or whatever).
Meraki brings up another good point. Well, 2 of them.
1. The PCs are the stars, so they should be given lots of opportunities to shine.
2. A variety of different encounter levels (EL, EL-1, EL-2, EL+1) is a lot more fun than the same level of challenge each time. Also, a lot of GMs like to push the boundaries of how tough of an encounter they can make for every single encounter. That can be a bit of a grind. Throwing in the occasional easy encounter really ups the fun. Like Meraki said, Players really like smashing things. :-D
I once played in a small group, and the DM introduced a DMPC for some reason 8 or 10 levels in, and it was a sloppy Fighter/Evoker/Eldritch Knight. SO MUCH friendly fire!!!! Grrrr!!!!
And the thing is, he roleplayed her really well, and she didn't out shine us. She was just EXTRA, so she slowed down our leveling by taking a share of XP. Then the DM's bro-in-law joined our group, and played a different Eldritch Knight! And really powergamey, too, if not successfully powergamey.
(The rest of the party was built for versatility, not power, since there were only 3 of us, so we had to overlap roles. My druid & wardog, an arcane trickster with some fighter levels sprinkled in, and a fighter dipping in mystic (Dragonlance's atheist 3.5 oracle/favored soul).
I think she killed my dog!
:-O
She wasn't just a little sloppy. She was a menace!
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Oh, man. Yeah, GM NPCs can definitely serve a purpose (round out a hole in the party if you don't have many players, that kind of thing), but definitely make sure they don't outshine the party. I was running a GM NPC for awhile in my current game. She participated in fights and some roleplaying stuff if the PCs initiated that, but they were the ones doing the story stuff. (She has since taken on more of a camp-support role since another player joined the game, making them a party of four anyway.)
Giving the GM NPC xp, though? That just seems...unnecessary.
The only DMPC I ever ran was an aasimar healer (3.5 version) who was more "treasure" than anything. The found a magic chest, got the magic key, found her in the box (like River Tam!), and then found the magic flower needed to wake her up (magic coffee!). Then she woke up, and was immediately given over to another player to run. :-P
It was a party of 8 (4 married couples IRL) with no clerics, and the druid and bard didn't really heal, so she was needed.
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I've never run a GM PC, but many interesting NPCs in my game are recruitable characters if made helpful, or incentivised to do so. Recruited NPCs always go last in initiative, and do take a share of XP, because they contribute too and that's how it goes if you recruit help.
The key is to make these NPCs interesting enough, and useful enough in their own right the players want them around, but not powerful enough that they will outshine the players.
I don't think NPCs should ever "steal" XP.
If the PCs maneuver one monster to fight another monster, do those monsters take XP away from the PCs? Or should they be rewarded with extra XP for being cunning?
Discuss!
:-P
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1) Keep the rules relevant to an encounter very easily accessible - use post-it flags to mark a physical book or copy/paste the rules into your scene or have a laptop with the rules up in a browser tab. Nothing stinks more than having to wait and wait while the GM looks up rules.
2) If there's a dispute between you and a player, let it work out the way the player wants 80% of the time, letting that other 20% be when it's really disruptive, and then look the rules up AFTER the session and make sure everyone knows the right rule going forward.
3) Instead of saying "No" say "Yes, but..."
4) Instead of saying "Yes" say "Yes, and..."
5) Have your descriptions engage the senses. Describe how something smells or feels or what it sounds like. Describe the chill running up a character's back when they see the eldritch horror, the sound of the gravel scrapping as it drags its distended third mouth along the ground, and the rancid smell of rotten halfling flesh still laying in a pile from its last meal.
6) Don't take away what makes a character special. If the character is really good at something, give the player opportunities to really show how awesome they are at it.
7) More low-level baddies and more traps and more terrain features are the way to make combat more interesting, take longer, and more difficult. Simply boosting AC, hit points, BAB, damage, or saves just annoys players.
Don't know if you're familiar with it, but Obsidian Portal is a great tool for keeping track of campaigns. It's got a characters section (where you can put both PCs and NPCs), the option to create a wiki, a section to upload maps, and an "adventure log" section where players can make posts (in character, usually, though it could also work just to track things that happened). I've found it pretty useful for my games. It's free to create an account, though you can upgrade to a paid account for some extra stuff.
Be careful with throwing in reinforcements too often. If you do it occasionally, it can work, but it's okay to let the party steamroller an encounter sometimes. (Players really like smashing things.) If it's happening with every encounter, then you might need to adjust how you build them, though.
EDIT: For some reason the link I tried to post isn't working (it keeps trying to redirect to somewhere on the Paizo site for some reason), but if you Google Obsidian Portal, you should find it.
Obsidian Portal is AWESOME. I use it extensively. Feel free to crib from anything you might find there: Skulls and Shackles Campaign
If you're looking at the public version, you're missing out on quite a bit. I also keep my adventure writeup in there - even though I'm using an AP, I keep a page in there which details out each scene, has maps posted in, and links to the SRD with relevant rules or creature stats.
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Oh, man. Yeah, GM NPCs can definitely serve a purpose (round out a hole in the party if you don't have many players, that kind of thing), but definitely make sure they don't outshine the party. I was running a GM NPC for awhile in my current game. She participated in fights and some roleplaying stuff if the PCs initiated that, but they were the ones doing the story stuff. (She has since taken on more of a camp-support role since another player joined the game, making them a party of four anyway.)
Giving the GM NPC xp, though? That just seems...unnecessary.
My two copper pieces on GM PC's. My current group only consists of two regular players. We've had a third, but they keep dropping out because of Real Life. For the next adventure I plan to run, I have created two adventuring NPCs to fill needed party roles. I plan to run them as combat and skill / spell bots. They will be there and the players will direct their actions as needed. Other than that they will only speak when spoken to and otherwise be in the background.
We ran a small party of 3 PCs and 3 henchmen (NPC Warriors). It worked out surprisingly well. The henchmen used relatively simple tactics, were quick to run, and it allowed the GM to be extra brutal because he could kill off characters and not knock players out of the game.
No thumb twiddling!
I think the PCs were 15 point buys and the henchmen 5 or 10 point buys.
Obsidian Portal is AWESOME. I use it extensively. Feel free to crib from anything you might find there: Skulls and Shackles CampaignIf you're looking at the public version, you're missing out on quite a bit. I also keep my adventure writeup in there - even though I'm using an AP, I keep a page in there which details out each scene, has maps posted in, and links to the SRD with relevant rules or creature stats.
What's in the paid version? I actually haven't really looked at what it offers because...well, it's not in the budget for now and I don't want to make myself sad. But now you've made me curious.
Don't know if you're familiar with it, but Obsidian Portal is a great tool for keeping track of campaigns. It's got a characters section (where you can put both PCs and NPCs), the option to create a wiki, a section to upload maps, and an "adventure log" section where players can make posts (in character, usually, though it could also work just to track things that happened). I've found it pretty useful for my games. It's free to create an account, though you can upgrade to a paid account for some extra stuff.
Be careful with throwing in reinforcements too often. If you do it occasionally, it can work, but it's okay to let the party steamroller an encounter sometimes. (Players really like smashing things.) If it's happening with every encounter, then you might need to adjust how you build them, though.
EDIT: For some reason the link I tried to post isn't working (it keeps trying to redirect to somewhere on the Paizo site for some reason), but if you Google Obsidian Portal, you should find it.
I haven't ever used it, but that sounds like a great tool. I've found that one of the most challenging aspects of the writing process is staying organized...
What are the collective thoughts on XP for the party?
Looking at the CR and XP award system, plus the leveling rates, it just seems like too much work and I find myself stressing over trying to make sure I haven't placed too much XP or too little XP in each adventure.
It is quite appealing to just level the characters at certain points in the story. I do know that earning experience can be part of the fun, though. Maybe I should just award it in calculated chunks. For instance, if they clear a dungeon, I could award a preset amount. That way I still know when they will level, they earn XP, and I don't have to stress over CR counting.
It is quite appealing to just level the characters at certain points in the story. I do know that earning experience can be part of the fun, though. Maybe I should just award it in calculated chunks. For instance, if they clear a dungeon, I could award a preset amount. That way I still know when they will level, they earn XP, and I don't have to stress over CR counting.
This appears to be a popular approach to leveling, especially with folks who are running Paizo APs, since the suggested party levels are printed in the book for each chapter.
I dunno though... my players are all D&D veterans and it seems like half the fun for them is writing down and totalling up xp. If I did away with xp awards, they'd feel like they were missing out on something, or even that the DM was trying to pull a fast one, and rob them of their deserved level advancement.
You might think of xp awards as incremental level advancement. Just keep track of how many xp they've got & how much they need for the next level, and tailor accordingly. If "CR counting" stresses you out, just pretend like you're adding things up in your head, dividing by four or six or whatever, then tell them how much xp they get. They'll never know. <g>
Random bits of advice that come to mind:
If any PCs get overpowered and you need to find ways to challenge/stop them, don't do it by just throwing high numbers against their strengths. This goes for non-combat stuff, too. Yeah, it's annoying if the rogue keeps climbing obstacles and leaving the rest of the party behind. Instead of just making Climb DCs arbitrarily high to stop him, design areas to not have undesirably climbable terrain, station guards on top of the walls, etc. Use an enemy that targets saves if you want to deal with the guy with absurd AC, rather than just boosting his attack sky-high. If you negate a character's strengths, you're invalidating their choices, and wrecking their intended vision of their PC as being good at this particular thing. They're going to start feeling either insecure about their character, and try to optimize more to compensate, or they'll feel like you'll just shoot down whatever they try to do.
Let players roll for all the things. But don't make them roll for all the things. Everyone enjoys succeeding at a skill check. What's not as much fun is rolling Perception every ten feet to check for traps, rolling Climb to get up a tiny ledge, rolling Perception to spot the item on the floor, rolling Appraise to know if it's worth anything, and then rolling Diplomacy and another Appraise to sell it. But if someone wants to make a skill check and it's a little weird/silly of an idea, let them do it. Chances are it's because they have a high mod in the skill and want an opportunity to use it. Even if it's random, the worst they can do is fail. And it might well give you room to give them a bit of a nudge in the direction you want.
On a similar note, many times the best DC is "the highest result of the group." If you want the party to succeed on that Perception check to notice this cool thing, no point in leaving it unseen just because they all rolled badly. Yeah, arguably, this lets the party get away with all having the same weaknesses, but if no one really wants to play a certain kind of character, why punish the group for all playing characters they want to? And getting to be the guy who spots the cool thing is often reward enough to motivate players to be able to do that.
If you need DMPCs for something (which, btw, can be perfectly reasonable, as long as they're there for a reason), as tempting a solution as it is to have them be minimally involved in roleplaying and fade into the background whenever possible, I've started trying to avoid doing this. Instead, figure out what the players/PCs would want from a tagalong. If the party bard wants an attractive girl/guy to try to impress, if any of the PCs have younger siblings who a child might remind them of, if the paladin would enjoy redeeming a captured enemy... then you can give players a cool opportunity to roleplay, while still keeping DMPCs very much in a supporting role.